While rounding the turn, Tom saw Sam Kossler glance back in his direction; every other driver did the same thing. They were worried and wondering when and how Tom would come up to them; they knew the blood bay colt would come. Coming off the turn and going into the backstretch, they left their single-line formation as though to take up as much of the track as possible to prevent Tom’s breaking through with Bonfire.
But the track was wide and Tom knew there’d be plenty of room to get by with his colt when he chose to use it. Just now he was content to let them worry and wonder about him.
They went the first lap of the track, the drivers ahead looking back at Tom constantly. They’d wanted him to make a move long since, for their straggling positions halfway across the track meant a longer distance for their horses to go. Only Sam Kossler and Tom were taking the short distance around.
They went into the first turn again and Tom heard George yell, “Good, Tom!”
Bonfire was getting impatient; he didn’t pull, but Tom could sense how he felt by the movements in mouth and body. Tom knew that the pace Sam Kossler was setting in front was easy on the colt. It would mean about a 2:20 mile for him, and that was just what Jimmy wanted for Bonfire this early in the season. Tom touched the lines. Bonfire was going to win this time.
And coming off the turn, entering the backstretch of the last lap, it happened. Later, the people who saw it found it difficult to explain exactly what they saw and felt. The nearest they could come was that the colt’s speed coming down the stretch and past the others set them afire; never had they seen such sudden power and breath-taking speed. For them, it was like being picked up and carried with him in his almost frightening, whirlwind flight to the finish. Sam Kossler said too that he’d never seen a colt turn on such speed so fast and for so long. Maybe one or two older horses during all the years he’d been racing, but never a two-year-old colt.
Bonfire didn’t come out for the third heat. It was to have been a race between Sam Kossler’s chestnut gelding and the colt, for each had won a heat, to decide which horse would be the winner. Tom and George had gone to the judges’ stand and had conceded the race to Sam Kossler, claiming that another mile would be too much for the colt this early in the season.
They were racing Bonfire as Jimmy Creech would have raced him.
“So we get second money instead of first, Tom,” George said, when they returned to the stable. “Jimmy said not to push the colt just to make money for him. We’re off now, Tom. And we’re twenty-five dollars to the good.”
But Tom didn’t hear George, for he was in the stall with his colt, watching him while he ate his bran mash. He wasn’t thinking of the money won or of Jimmy Creech. He was thinking only of his colt and the speed he’d shown that last time around. He and Bonfire had started their careers together, and the first race was usually the toughest. Next was the Indiana County Fair—and with his colt he looked forward to it eagerly.
RACING THE FAIR CIRCUIT
17
Unless a person was a regular reader of the weekly racing publications which devoted some of their space to the results at the smaller fairs, or unless he had attended the Pennsylvania fairs at Indiana, Clearfield, Bedford, Dayton, Mercer and Port Royal during the months of July and August, he never would have known of a blood bay colt by the name of Bonfire. For Tom Messenger never allowed his colt to go faster than a 2:19 mile. And there was nothing exceptional in a two-year-old racing in that time, especially when this was the year of such top ones as Princess Guy and Silver Knight.
The weekly racing publications gave a large portion of their space to summaries of races won by Miss Elsie Topper’s black filly, Princess Guy, at the Ohio fairs as she broke one track record after another in amazing times ranging from 2:09 to 2:04. Just as much space was given to the startling speed being displayed by Silver Knight as he improved with each successive night race at the Roosevelt Raceway and brought his record down to 2:05.
Hoof Beats was published monthly, and regularly there would be an article discussing “the extreme speed of Silver Knight and Princess Guy.” The magazine hoped that “Miss Elsie Topper and the amateur sportsman, Phillip Cox, would see fit to race their exceptional filly and colt against each other before the season ended … as we feel certain that such a race would lower Titan Hanover’s world record of 2:03 ½ for two-year-olds on a half-mile track.”
George snorted, “Humph.”
Tom said, looking at his colt, “If I just let him out once, just once, they’d all know.”
But he never did. At one fair after another, race after race, he rated Bonfire carefully behind the others, trailing the field until near the end of the race when he made his move. And, as in their first race at the Washington Fair, it was these sprints that people talked about long after Bonfire had gone. Yet their talk of the blood bay colt’s blinding sprints that “pick you up and set you afire even though you’re sitting in the grandstand” stayed within the small-fair circuit and never reached the outer world.
“It’s the way Jimmy wants us to do it,” George said. “We’re not rushin’ him at all.”
And Tom realized as the season progressed the value of Jimmy’s orders. Bonfire was stronger than ever, his legs and body were as hard as steel and never was there any sign of lameness or stiffness. Moreover, the colt knew what racing was all about now. He and Tom had learned quickly.
Only twice did Bonfire lose a race, and then only because Tom was outsmarted by the older drivers and couldn’t get through in time to win. At every fair except one, the colt raced against aged horses, the same as at Washington. The Dayton Fair had a race solely for two-year-old colts and Tom and Bonfire had the easiest time of all, winning in 2:19.
The purse money won accumulated and George took care of it.
“Eleven races an’ nine hundred dollars,” he said, adding it up. “Jimmy never had it this good. And Tom, think what it would be if we were racin’ for more’n two- and three-hundred-dollar purses divided up among the first four horses! But no sense thinkin’ about that,” he added soberly. “Purses never have been more an’ never will be in this circuit.”
From the money won, they deducted their expenses and sent the rest home to Jimmy Creech. They figured that Jimmy should feel a lot better having this money coming in to pay his bills. But he didn’t; his letters were few and far between and his handwriting, a weak scrawl difficult to read, was that of a sick man. Dr. Morton’s letters to them didn’t help either, for he wrote that “Jimmy’s condition is the same, but I’m surprised that he isn’t in better spirits since Bonfire is doing so well.”
George said, “I figure he’s still worried about payin’ the doc. Jimmy didn’t have no idea he’d be sick this long.”
Tom and George worried about Jimmy even more as they moved farther and farther away from Coronet, going eastward where the fairs were larger and the purses a little better.
It was early September when they arrived at the York Fair. Reading and Uncle Wilmer’s farm were less than a hundred miles to the north and east. They would be at the Reading Fair in a week’s time and Uncle Wilmer and Aunt Emma were expecting them. Eagerly Tom looked forward to seeing them and the Queen again; he knew too how much his uncle wanted to see Bonfire go.
They found the York Fair to be as large as the fair at Reading; there was a great cement grandstand and bleachers, and there were just as many people milling about the exhibit buildings and stables.
“Just look at this purse we’re racin’ for today,” George said excitedly. “Six hundred and fifty dollars! Let’s see now. That’s—” He figured a moment, then went on, “Three hundred and twenty-five bucks to the winner! If we’d known the purses were going to be that big, Tom, we woulda come here earlier in the week. Here it is the last day of the races.”
“There’s Reading ahead of us,” Tom reminded him. “The purses will be just as large there.”
The boy turned to look down the long row of stables. He didn’t know any of the men h
ere, but they were no different from all the others he’d met and raced against at the fairs. Hardened, well-lined old faces—the Jimmy Creeches of this sport. There were no big stables, no raceway drivers, for the purse money, while good, could not be compared with that given at the night raceways. They had to work harder at the fairs for their money, Tom thought, for each race meant driving two and sometimes three heats, while at the raceways they went what they called a “dash,” which simply meant just one race of a mile with no heats.
That was another thing Jimmy Creech had against the raceways. He didn’t like those “dashes.” He believed a horse should have stamina and endurance as well as speed, and how much he had of both could be decided only by racing in heats—the way it always had been done.
Some people crowded near to look at Bonfire in his stall, and George and Tom talked to them until it was time to get ready for their race. He enjoyed having the people come to their stall, as they had at all the fairs. Most of them knew something about fine breeding and were genuinely interested in the sport. That’s what made the fairs, and that was one of the reasons, Tom knew, why Jimmy would never desert them for the raceways. George and Jimmy said it wasn’t the same at the raceways, that it couldn’t be. Tom didn’t know, but he guessed they were right.
They brought Bonfire out of his stall, and his red coat burned bright in the sun while they put the light racing harness on him.
The track marshal came down the row, telling those who were getting their horses ready, “We’re going out in a few minutes. Get ’em all set.”
After hooking up the sulky, George stepped back to look critically at Bonfire. “Why don’t you take him down to two fifteen today? He’s ready for it, easy. An’ from what I hear that ought to win for us. That three hundred and twenty-five first-place money looks pretty good.”
“He’s ready, all right,” Tom agreed. “And I’ll take him faster than two fifteen if necessary. Even Jimmy would say it’s all right now.” He put on Bonfire’s bridle and adjusted the head number on top. It was of light plastic and stood up straight; there was a white figure 3 on a black background. “Pretty fancy today.” Tom smiled. “Head numbers and everything.”
“We got a mobile starting gate today, too,” George said. “It’s Bonfire’s first time with one of those. Hope he don’t give you trouble.”
“I don’t think he will,” Tom answered.
The horses in the post parade passed the grandstand and bleachers. Tom felt a little nervous before so many people, and his nervousness communicated itself to the colt. Bonfire tossed his head, and the head number flashed in the sun.
Then Tom calmed down. “It’s just another race,” he told himself, “the same as at any of the fairs. More people here, that’s all.” And he told the colt. Bonfire relaxed with him.
“The number three horse is the only two-year-old colt in the race,” the announcer said to the packed throng over the public-address system. “Bonfire, a blood bay colt, sired by the Black and out of Volo Queen. Owned by Jimmy Creech of Coronet, Pennsylvania, and driven by Tom Messenger.”
The announcer’s voice droned on until he had introduced all seven horses in the race. They went down to the first turn and came back. “The horses will take one warm-up score, then go into their respective positions behind the mobile starting gate awaiting them at the head of the stretch.”
Tom warmed up Bonfire faster and farther down the track than he did usually. The colt sensed the change, for he snorted while going along; that was unusual for him, too.
The horses went around the track, jogging into position as they neared the mobile starting gate. Tom was glad he had drawn the number three spot, for with seven horses in the race the track was crowded and the going would be difficult at the start. But in his position he would be able to get to the turn first without having to go around any of the others. He had been lucky in the draw for position. He hoped his luck held with $325 at stake.
Coming off the back turn, they spread out into position behind the wings of the mobile gate. The car began moving and the starter, dressed all in white, stood in the back of the open convertible, talking to them through his small microphone.
“Slowly now,” he cautioned them. “Don’t rush your horses. Come together. That’s it. Stay together. Not too close, Mr. Wilson. Keep your horse back from the gate, Mr. Wilson! That’s it. Mr. Read, come up a little with the others. You too, Mr. Messenger. Bring your horse up with the others.”
The car was halfway to the starting line now and moving faster; the horses went along with it, pushing their noses close to the barrier.
“You’re coming up too fast, Mr. Messenger. Keep that colt back from the gate!”
Tom was having more trouble than he’d expected. Bonfire wasn’t sure about that pole extending across the track in front of him. He didn’t know what it was going to do. And the strange voice blaring in front of him didn’t help; neither did the speeding car’s wheels that sent the track dust into his nostrils. Tom kept him close to the fast moving gate, for he wanted to get away with the others; he didn’t want to lose his good position before reaching the turn.
Like an onrushing wave the horses came to the starting line, and the starter yelled, “GO!”
But just before the starter’s cry sent them off, Bonfire touched the metal barrier with his nose. The gate’s vibrations swept back through the colt’s body; Bonfire threw back his head, breaking the check rein, and then stopped short.
Tom was thrown against Bonfire’s hindquarters, but he regained his seat and sought to calm the colt. Bonfire responded when he heard Tom’s voice, and the boy let him go again. But Tom made no attempt to catch up with the field, for by this time they were halfway around the track, and it would be better to save the colt’s energy for the next heat.
He jogged Bonfire around the outside of the track, then took him back to the stables.
“I was afraid of this,” George said, leading the colt. “Just as Jimmy says,” he added angrily, “these newfangled contraptions!”
“I shouldn’t have kept him so close to the gate,” Tom said, rubbing Bonfire’s neck while he walked beside him. “Not his first time before it. I should’ve known better. I was just so busy thinking about getting away fast.”
“We’ll get them next heat,” George said. “Take that one and the third an’ the race is ours.”
“I hope so,” Tom returned. “I hope our luck doesn’t change. It’s been good so far.”
“Not with that colt it won’t,” George said. “Not with him.”
But while they awaited the racing of the second heat, it seemed to George as well as to Tom that their luck had changed—for the worse. The bad news came in a letter from Dr. Morton which the race secretary handed to them. Tom and George read it together.
Dear George,
I’ve decided that it’ll be best for Jimmy if we move him to a Pittsburgh hospital. I can’t understand why his condition hasn’t improved more than it has during the last few months, and I want to have him where I can watch him more closely and have all the facilities for any treatment that may be necessary. It may be that complications have set in, and I’ll certainly keep in touch with you.
I’d like to caution you about something. I know you’ve been sending Jimmy clippings from magazines of the various fairs at which you’ve raced. It does Jimmy a lot of good, I know, to see Bonfire’s name listed as the winner in these race results. But I must warn you to note carefully what is printed on the back of any clippings you send in the future.
A month or so ago, Jimmy read on the back of one you’d sent that Miss Elsie Topper had left the Ohio fairs and was racing her black filly, Princess Guy, at Maywood Park, the night raceway just outside of Chicago.
I don’t have to tell you how Jimmy feels about the night raceways. He bellowed for days that Miss Elsie had betrayed him, and I had all I could do to quiet him down. So please be more careful in the future.
Sincerely,
Henry Mort
on, M.D.
They finished reading the letter together, and Tom said, “I guess I did it.”
“Maybe I sent it,” George returned gravely. “I don’t know. I’m worried about him, Tom.”
“Do you think we should go back, George?”
“No, I don’t, Tom. We can do more good for him here. He’ll worry more than ever now with hospital bills to pay.”
“Jimmy should’ve realized we were disappointed in Miss Elsie’s going to the raceways, too,” Tom said.
“He probably did,” George said, rising from his chair. “But that didn’t help any. Let’s get Bonfire ready. You and him have got work to do.” Then he stopped and turned to Tom. “Jimmy oughta quit knockin’ himself out worrying about other people. It’s Miss Elsie’s life an’ she can go an’ race nights if she wants to.” Shaking his bald head, George walked into Bonfire’s stall.
Tom followed George into the stall and pulled off the colt’s blanket. “I just got to thinking about that clipping of our winning the race at the Port Royal Fair. The one you’re going to send Jimmy.”
George removed his hands from Bonfire to take out his wallet. The clipping was there; a complete page of race summaries. He unfolded it and turned it over to read the back.
A full-page advertisement met their eyes, an advertisement showing a man wearing a white shirt. The headline read: “ANNOUNCING THE SILVER KNIGHT SHIRT.” The advertising copy beneath it went on to say: “The Phillip Cox Company takes great pleasure in naming its newest shirt creation after SILVER KNIGHT, the top two-year-old colt of the year. And like SILVER KNIGHT our new shirt is outstanding in every way! It has the same racy lines … the same smoothness and beauty! And don’t forget it’s designed by amateur sportsman Phillip Cox, who knows what makes a champion! He’s done it with the great colt, SILVER KNIGHT … and he’s done it with this new, startling, racy SILVER KNIGHT SHIRT! You’ll find them at all good clothing shops. See them today! Wear them to the races tomorrow!”